“Well, that was interesting,” James said to himself.

  He composed a quick announcement, which he then transmitted to the members of his council using his Fisher King powers.

  [Greetings, members of my council. It’s been a while, and I’m sure some of you have been worried about my rather long silence recently. Have no fear, I have been having a rest. Through circumstances I will explain in a meeting this evening, I was injured and am recovering. The injuries are non-life-threatening, and with time, I am entirely confident that I will return to my normal routine of kicking ass and taking names. Do not worry about attending the meeting in our usual location or about making it on time. Just go to bed at your usual bedtimes, and I’ll find you. I’ve made us a reservation in Dreamspace.]

  There, that’s suitably opaque and mysterious.

  Then he was left with the question of what to do next, but that was no question at all as far as he was concerned. He could not hasten his own recovery. He had already asked Mina to do her part. The meeting he intended to have with the council would not take place until the evening, since he intended to hold it in Dreamspace. And what he had seen with the army just steadied his own resolve not to summon them back unless he had to—in which case he could quite literally summon some of them using his Summon Divine Helper Skill.

  There was nothing he could do to improve his situation for now but acquire more fighters to help him defend his country. And James would do that, not by inviting new immigrants—more continued to come every day, with or without his invitation, and his builders were consistently working to accommodate that—nor by finding more people to bless. Rather, James would spend his time and energy on one of his basic, bread and butter Skills, which he had not employed to its fullest potential recently.

  Monster Generation.

  James used Monster Generation and Shed Skin at the same time. It felt less graceful and more lumbering than usual—his skin seemed to crawl off of his body rather than effortlessly tumbling free from his flesh as it had previously. Once it was separate, however, the Skin Husk moved as a shed layer of skin normally moved, wispy and surprisingly quick, obedient to James’s silent orders.

  The monster opened James’s bag and drew out his Ego Spidersword. The weapon seemed to recognize that the skin that held it was a part of James’s body, so it should not fight against the Skin Husk’s grip. The Skin Husk grasped it with both of its frail hands and raised it high in the air above James’s legs.

  So, that works. It took a moment for James to adjust his mind and remind himself that what he was seeing—the creature looking like it was about to lop off one or both of his legs—was just fine. Part of the plan.

  He sent a quick message to Mina with his Fisher King powers before he began the next phase of the work.

  [Mina, I’m about to do some intense stuff in the bedroom, just experimenting with my powers a bit. If you hear noises, or even screaming, don’t come in. If I need you, I’ll call you like this.]

  He heard her footsteps approach the other side of the door. They were remarkably quiet compared to what they had once been, and James could easily imagine her being able to sneak up on him if she really tried.

  “Even screaming, skapi?” she called quietly, in a tone of, Are you sure?

  “Even screaming!” James yelled back.

  “All right.” His wife’s small feet padded away again.

  James wondered for a moment if she would put in ear plugs. Then he pulled himself back to the present, poured Mana into his legs, and looked up at the monster that stood, motionless, looming over his lower body like an omen of death.

  “Well, go ahead,” James said.

  The creature swung the sword down and severed two of the Fisher King’s limbs below the joints.

  Rather than falling away bloodily, the two limbs fell away from his body with a dull sound like two dried husks of meat striking the bed.

  Thank goodness for Full Body Control. He could feel the blood just above his knees, pulsing, trying to make its way down through the arteries that led into the lower legs—or had led into the lower legs until this recent amputation.

  Instantly, the stumps of flesh and bone began slowly repairing themselves. New material grew where once such development would have been impossible. It was nothing new to James, but the Skin Husk used Laying on Hands to hasten the process. That was the Skill James had imbued that particular monster with, along with Rapid Recovery, and those selections were for good reason.

  There was a whole lot more Monster Generation to come.

  Over the next several hours, James allowed his flesh to be chopped into smaller and smaller pieces—the better to regenerate more quickly from each injury—so that each new hunk of his body could become a new, independently living monster with its own Skills and movement capabilities.

  I’m like some biblical demon, James thought in one of the less painful moments, looking around at the freakish assortment of monsters of many sizes that surrounded him on all sides. I am called Legion, for we are many…

  He chuckled quietly, his throat dry from lack of water.

  Then he continued. The monster chopped off one of the ears from James’s head next, and the cartilage immediately bent and twisted itself into limbs that allowed the creature to spring from one spot to another on the bed. It ran around on all fours in circles within James’s peripheral vision for a few seconds before he silently ordered it to move down to the foot of the bed, then sit and stay.

  And the carnage continued.

  As the ear grew back, the Skin Husk was slicing off James’s left foot again—just the foot, because James had determined that was an ideal piece to be quickly regrown much faster than if the ankle and shin had come with it. Then the right hand, because that came with ready-made legs in the form of James’s fingers, and that was the hand that did not have James’s wedding ring on it. He had already retrieved it from four different monsters made from his left hand, and while that was doable, it was annoying ordering the monsters to give it back to him and then watching them try to coordinate pulling a ring off of one of their number and slipping it back onto his freshly regenerated hand.

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  The remarkable thing is that every single one of these pieces can move on their own, James thought. No matter how small.

  On some level, he had known that since, months ago, he experimented with creating a monster from a single drop of blood.

  Which reminds me…

  James finally allowed some of the blood to flow from the many wounds he had made, but he would not allow this sudden multi-pronged geyser of red to make a mess on his wife’s sheets. Not when James had controlled his own body so successfully throughout this process—acquiring three levels in Full Body Control as he did so.

  He allowed the blood to flow out, but he poured Mana and Stamina and Skills into it. He willed the streams to float up into the air, as if gravity was reversed. They pulsed out unnaturally, only to combine into a single organism, a living ball of dark red fluid. The monster that James had already dubbed, in his own mind, the Blood Slime.

  As the monster congealed into a large, liquid, grotesque form, comprised of almost half the blood from James’s unusually large and powerful body, James almost lost control of the rest of his blood. Part of it was that his body took a moment to obey his instructions and stop delivering more of the fluid to the creature’s body. Part of it was the sheer amount of power James had expended to create this final creature, after spending hours pouring energy into lesser monsters. Part of it might have been that the nascent monster semi-consciously wished for more of his blood to further increase itself.

  But the main thing was definitely that the System chose this moment, when James’s focus was weakened from loss of blood, to give him several pop-ups.

  [A new type of life form has been created! Sublime Creator Title provides a boost to initial power in making this and other creations of a similar type. Sublime Creator Title rewards you with bonus experience for your original creation!]

  [Required conditions met. Title acquired: Monster Progenitor!]

  [Sufficient experience accrued. Monster Generation leveled up!]

  [Sufficient experience accrued. Monster Control leveled up!]

  [Sufficient experience accrued. Monster Patriarch leveled up!]

  [Sufficient experience accrued. Predator in Human Skin leveled up!]

  James felt a sudden surge of power all through his body, beyond what he recalled he usually felt when he gained a Class level.

  Really? I got a Class level just from playing around like this? More importantly, I’m guessing the improvements to those Skills and the underlying Talent brought me some additional power. That would probably explain why I feel a little bit stronger. Or maybe it’s the new Title…

  As James mentally swiped away the System notifications, planning to open the System interface and read what he assumed would be new and improved Skill descriptions for Monster Generation and Monster Control, his eyes were suddenly distracted by something.

  On the monster that floated above him in the air, now slowly and gently descending toward the bed, James saw attributes that he had never seen on a monster before. Just above and to the side of what he would describe as the creature’s head—though James had consciously avoided giving the Blood Slime real appendages, since he based it on a video game’s concept of slimes—there was a colored, gently glowing bar.

  That bar was small, but it was very definitely real. Even as James blinked, and the monster landed gently in his lap, the bar did not waver or disappear. As he looked more carefully, he quickly recognized that there was another bar, slightly smaller, that had been almost hidden behind it. With a slight mental effort, James got the bar to drop below the first one so that he could see both.

  Judging by the green color of the first and the blue color of the second, combined with vague video game awareness, James recognized that the first was probably a Health bar, while the other likely displayed the creature’s remaining Mana.

  I can literally see your amount of resources now. That’s the big change.

  The sudden shift in his visual experience was dizzying.

  Or perhaps it was the sudden and drastic loss of blood and energy that had gone into creating the Blood Slime. James had consciously tried to make it the strongest of his new creations, and he was feeling much weaker than he had after making any of the earlier monsters.

  Either way, James closed his eyes for a few seconds and allowed the several creatures that had the Laying on Hands Skill to administer their care to him. He did not reopen his eyes until he felt that his body had regenerated a fair amount of blood. He didn’t want to faint or feel weak while he was exploring this new connection to his monsters.

  He opened his eyes to the Blood Slime still sitting quietly in his lap, just looking up at him through its—well, its featureless shape, since it had no eyes, although James felt the creature’s gaze on him.

  I want to know all your secrets, little one, James thought. He stared hard, directly at the Blood Slime for a moment, and a new screen appeared.

  Holy shit…

  [Status

  Name: Unnamed

  Race: Blood Slime, Lv. 0

  Health: 225/225

  Mana: 180/180

  Stamina: 324/324

  Stats

  Strength: 10

  Agility: 15

  Stamina: 18

  Fortitude: 20

  Dexterity: 5

  Perception: 20

  Will: 18

  Intelligence: 10

  Stealth: 4

  Free Points: 0

  Skills

  Basic Elemental Magic: Gravity, Lv. 0

  Basic Elemental Magic: Water, Lv. 0

  Full Body Control, Lv. 0

  Invisibility

  Monstrous Instincts, Lv. 1

  Monstrous Senses, Lv. 1

  Pillage, Lv. 0

  Soul-Freezing Gaze, Lv. 0]

  The creature had decent Stats and way more Skills than it should at its level, as James had intended, but what surprised him was how extensive the Status was. He had never seen a Health bar for one of his creatures, but he had also never seen most of this stuff. Not Stats, levels, any of it.

  Those “Monstrous” two are Skills I definitely never gave it, James thought. And this thing has a fucking level! My monsters have never had levels before, at least not that I could see. Even the two Skills I’ve never heard of have levels already…

  James focused and began examining these new Skills, Monstrous Instincts and Monstrous Senses, in more detail.